For p. 1120. The word vastus is deemed to be an adjective, and its proper meaning is believed to be that of latus [broad], amplus [wide], etc. (see Forcellini), and when it signifies vastatus [devastated, depopulated], this is taken to be a metaphor derived from the fact that *“empty places appear bigger and more vast”* (Forcellini). I think that vastus is simply a participle of a lost verb of which vastare (guastare) is the continuative, that its proper meaning was that of the Italian guasto (which is the same word), analogous to that of vastatus, that the metaphor shifted (in the way described by Forcellini) from guasto to amplio, which seems to me far more natural than the other way around. [1939] And I observe that the earliest example of vastus from among the many supplied by Forcellini is in the sense of vastatus, and that our guasto, that is to say, vastus, is indeed one of the participles of guastare, that is, vastare. From being a participle vastus must very gradually have become an adjective (first with the meaning of vastatus and then with that of latus), just like desertus, itself a participle, which had then turned into a kind of adjective, with a meaning akin to the original meaning of vastus, with which writers sometimes connect it. (17 Oct. 1821.)
Just as a young person is never persuaded of the truth prior to having experienced it, so too parents and those to whose care the young are entrusted are never persuaded (despite the evidence they have in their own selves) that in their case teaching cannot stand in for experience. When I say that they are not persuaded, I mean not until they have also had that experience themselves. Unfortunately (since people of intelligence and talent who are readily open to being habituated and persuaded are rare), one or two or more experiences will not suffice. They always need an individual experience regarding the particular young person entrusted to them. After all, just as a young person always takes himself and his own circumstances to be an exception to the rules and the general order, which he often knows very well, so too the educators take each young person [1940] to be an exception to the general order and nature of his contemporaries. (18 Oct. 1821.)
Just how much opinion, prejudice, memory, habituation, etc., influence the relish or disgust that flavors, whether considered separately or as compounds, produce in individuals is something that can be and is observed every day. (18 Oct. 1821.)
I have said [→Z 1663–65] that a pleasant color is wrongly called beautiful, just as pleasurable tastes cannot be called beautiful. I further observe that the category of the beautiful is more relevant to flavors than to colors. Flavors have harmony, that is, they match, and if this is not called beauty it is only because of custom. A flavor that is good or bad in isolation will become the opposite in a particular compound. Flavors are, for the most part, compounds, and only please or disgust on account of the harmony or disharmony there is between them within each compound. It is habituation that judges harmony or disharmony, as do all those human [1941] qualities that judge and appreciate beauty, and produce an infinite number of different judgments of it, as indeed happens with taste, about which we are more appropriately given to saying de gustibus non est disputandum [there is no arguing about tastes]. As for elementary flavors, such as sweetness, bitterness, etc., individuals are less divided in their judgments of them, because they lie outside of the harmony that depends solely on habituation. Here too, however, individual, national, etc., habituations and circumstances do still exert an influence. Once we observe that the harmony and disharmony of flavors is determined to a very great extent by habituation, we will not wonder at the cuisines and tastes of the different nations differing more, the more distant and diverse these nations are, so that many foods and drinks favored in one nation are utterly disgusting to foreigners. Likewise also we know of many foods or drinks that are detestable to us but were a gastronomic delight and the height of luxury for ancients of refined taste. And this, on account of the above [1942] considerations, is not something we would wonder at, nor would we find it hard to believe, especially in view of the very many marked contrasts in taste among the most refined and neighboring nations, as between the French and the English. Relish or disgust for elementary flavors, and their greater or lesser pleasantness or unpleasantness, is determined in large part by nature, and is itself elementary, as is that of colors, sounds, smells. (By elementary flavors and smells I mean natural ones, or the specific qualities of the flavor, such as sweetness in sugar, although sugar is not a simple substance.) But in their harmony, which is for the most part determined by habituation, tastes vary with places, times, individuals, as in all other harmonies, natural peoples love foods or drinks that are utterly disgusting to us, and vice versa, etc.
Now whereas flavors as flavors are susceptible to harmony and disharmony, and hence to pleasure and displeasure, like sounds or tones, colors as colors are not susceptible to them, and therefore as [1943] colors do not enter into the sphere of the beautiful. Certainly, if we consider colors in isolation and without applying them to different colored objects, whether natural or artificial (which are pleasant or unpleasant on account of other kinds of harmony), man feels little or no harmony or disharmony, relish or disgust toward the various combinations and gradations of colors, when they do not express anything. Whereas the different combinations and dispositions and gradations of flavors and sounds cannot be without harmony or disharmony, relish or disgust for the palate or the hearing, and this to a greater or a lesser degree.
The cause of this difference is simply the lack of habituations determining and creating the harmony or disharmony of pure colors. And the cause of this (if not total, then all but total) lack (which makes a mockery of the attempt to fashion a music of colors) can only be, in my opinion, the sheer quantity of habituations, [1944] sensations, activities, and most diverse occupations pertaining to sight. These being constantly applied to objects, they distract sight from considering the visible qualities of objects independently of the objects themselves, in such a way as to allow us to form from them alone a number of habituations sufficient to make their pure combination harmonious or disharmonious. Sight is the most material of all the senses, and the least suited to all that has to do with abstraction. Consequently, sight and its pleasures are the favorite sensations of natural man, etc.… etc.… etc. See Costa, Dell’elocuzione.1
We must say the opposite of the sense of smell, which, being the least exercised of the human senses, has not even had any adequately determined harmony or disharmony created in its sensations, that is, in smells. There are compound smells, like tastes, but the sense of smell is not really capable of discerning in them the harmony or disharmony of the elements, both the element that harmonizes and the one that is discordant, as the palate does with flavors. Both elements do, however, depend [1945] on the differing habituations and the differing habits of paying attention that different individuals have acquired in relation to these two senses, since it is well known how far the sense of smell is susceptible to refinement, discrimination, etc. See Magalotti, Lettere scientifiche.1 And I would go so far as to say that man is more capable of creating a harmony of smells than one of colors, and that the former harmony is more strongly determined in man than is the latter, etc. etc. etc. (18 Oct. 1821.)
From all of the above, it is plain that harmony, that is, beauty, is the pure work and creature of habituation, and so much so that if habituation does not exist then the idea of harmony does not either, not even where it would seem most natural. (18 Oct. 1821.)
For p. 1660. Since pronunciation varies with climates and peoples, it is probable that Latin when it passed into, e.g., Gaul, and when the Franks received it from the Gauls, began to be pronounced much as French is pronounced, [1946] though written in the way they had received it, that is to say, as the Latins wrote it. Hence the difference between writing and pronunciation, and the shortcomings in the representation of sounds. In fact, even today the French, the English, the Germans, etc., read Latin as they do their own languages. And it is as likely to suppose that they approximate to Latin pronunciation as it is to believe that the
Latins were English, etc. In fact they were Italian, and it is natural that this climate and this people, who were Latin, should have retained the greater part of the true pronunciation of Latin texts, for they had no reason to change it. (18 Oct. 1821.) See p. 1967.
I have said that the Italian language is susceptible to every style [→Z 244–45, 321, 685–86, 766, 1313‒15], and I have said that French conversation cannot be sustained in Italian [→Z 1513–15]. This is not a contradiction. Our language by its nature is capable of lightness, spirit, dash, rapidity, etc., as also of gravity, etc. It is capable of expressing all the nuances of social life, etc., but it is not capable, indeed no language ever was, of [1947] assuming a foreign character. The same goes for translations. Italian is capable of all the most various styles, while retaining its own character, and not altering it. If that were not so we would have to agree that our language lacked its specific character, and that would not be a virtue but a supreme defect. The originality of our language (which is very marked) should not suffer when we apply it to any style or matter. This is precisely what it is capable of, not of losing or altering its character while putting on a different, foreign one. No language is capable of that without becoming corrupted. And the great merit of the Italian language consists in the fact that its character, without being lost, can adapt to every kind of style. German lacks this quality. Although it has the same and perhaps greater adaptability, it does not at the same time retain its specific character. And this is something that all the most restive languages could do because, if they relinquish their specific character, and become corrupted in short, they could easily adapt to one or another foreign style. [1948] “L’art de traduire est poussé plus loin en allemand que dans aucun autre dialecte européen. Voss a transporté dans sa langue les poëtes grecs et latins avec une étonnante exactitude; et W. Schlegel les poëtes anglais, italiens et espagnols, avec une vérité de coloris don’t il n’y avoit point d’exemple avant lui. Lorsque l’allemand se prête à la traduction de l’anglais, il ne perd pas son caractère naturel, puisque ces langues sont toutes deux d’origine germanique; mais quelque mérite qu’il y ait dans la traduction d’Homère par Voss, elle fait de l’Iliade et de l’Odyssée, des poëmes dont le style est grec, bien que les mots soient allemands. La connoissance de l’antiquité y gagne; l’originalité propre à l’idiome de chaque nation y perd nécessairement. Il semble que c’est une contradiction d’accuser la langue allemande tout à la fois de trop de flexibilité et de trop de rudesse; mais ce qui [1949] se concilie dans les caractères peut aussi se concilier dans les langues; et souvent dans la même personne les inconveniens de la rudesse n’empêchent pas ceux de la flexibilité” [“The art of translation is taken further in German than in any other European dialect. Voss has carried across the Greek and Latin poets into his own language with a startling exactitude; and W. Schlegel the English, Italian, and Spanish poets with an unprecedented truth in the coloring. When German lends itself to translation from the English, it does not lose its natural character, since both of these languages are Germanic in origin; but whatever merit there is in Voss’s translation of Homer, it turns the Iliad and the Odyssey into poems whose style is Greek, although the words are German. Our knowledge of antiquity gains by it; the originality peculiar to the idiom of each nation necessarily loses by it. It would seem to be a contradiction to accuse the German language of at once being too flexible and too stiff, but something that may be reconciled in characters can also be reconciled in languages; and often in one and the same person the disadvantages of stiffness do not preclude those of flexibility”]. Mme. la Baronne de Staël-Holstein, De l’Allemagne, tome 1, 2nd part, ch. 9, p. 248, 3rd ed., Paris 1815.1
This, then, is not what you would call being good for translations. It merely means that, without awkwardness and prejudice to its grammatical rules, a particular language can adapt itself to the constructions and style of any language with supreme accuracy. But accuracy does not necessarily entail fidelity, etc. Another language loses its character and dies in your own, and your own loses its specific character as it receives it, even though it does not violate its grammatical rules. Homer is therefore not Homer in German, just as he is not Homer in a literal Latin translation. Even Latin, which is so unadaptable, does adapt [1950] very well to constructions, etc., especially Greek, without committing grammatical errors, but not without losing its character, nor without killing itself and the character of the author thus translated. And that’s how one can combine in one and the same language characters that are flexible and stiff, or restive. See p. 1953, end. Whereas the Italian language when translating, and in this regard I would call it unique among the living languages, can preserve the character of each author in such a way that he is at once foreign and Italian. This is utter perfection in a translation and in the art of translating. But it does not achieve this with the scrupulous accuracy of German, although it, too, is capable of a great deal of accuracy (as may be seen in Monti’s Iliad); but rather with the boundless pliability and versatility of its character, and which constitutes its character. See p. 1988.
Returning to my argument, foreign customs introduce a foreign character into a nation and its language. The Italian language, therefore, cannot be adapted to specifically French conversation, such as French customs introduce, just as no other language can (and German least of [1951] all, Staël, passim).1 What it can do is translate it and match it. Up until now, however, this faculty is there potentially, but has not been realized. If the Italians had more society, as they are eminently capable of having (as they were in the 16th century), and if they conversed not in French but in Italian, they would very soon manage to give their language words and features equivalent to those of French in this sphere. Nevertheless, they would be speaking and writing in Italian. They would be able to create a social Italian language as polished, refined, flexible, and rich and gay, etc., as French, yet not French but characteristic and national. And putting this to use we could then translate written or spoken French perfectly, which today we don’t translate but rather transcribe, as the German translators do. This capacity is part of the character of Italian, and hence inseparable from it. But it cannot be realized without the necessary conditions. It is only recently that Italian language or Italian poetry has been made not just capable, but actually applied to the splendor, etc., of Virgil’s style. (19 Oct. 1821.)
I have said [→Z 1718] that children who are not yet used to paying attention and remembering will easily fail to recognize and will mix up people whom they have [1952] not seen for some time, etc. Likewise, a significant change in dress, etc., will prevent them from recognizing a person already known to them, and will also delay recognition of those who are very well known and familiar. All these effects also occur in animals, which are less habituated than man to paying attention, and hence to remembering. (19 Oct. 1821.)
To know for a fact that no social state was or will be or can be perfect, that is, perfectly balanced and harmonious in its constitutive forces, and in its being ordered so as to advance the well-being of peoples and individuals (all wise men admit this); to know that even if it could be such at the beginning (like a monarchy, a republic) the absolute essence of society bears the seeds of corruption in itself, and very quickly and unfailingly destroys this perfection, this harmony, etc., in its constitutive principles: is this not a sufficient proof that man is not made for society, or not at any rate for a society that is tight-knit and [1953] composed of civilized men, and that such a society is incompatible with human nature and contradictory in its principles? A society such as this on the one hand needs civilization, on the other it unfailingly produces it, and civilization destroys the perfection and harmony of any society made in this way. Such a society cannot be found in nature, and on the other hand, as I have shown elsewhere [→Z 1173, 1596], it can only be perfect and perfectly ordered for its purpose in nature and among natural men. (19 Oct. 1821.)
All sensations of vigor (if it is not excessive f
or species and individuals respectively) are pleasurable. Ask the doctors. This suggests that vigor, being pleasurable in itself, is precisely destined for animals by nature, and forms an essential part of their well-being, and that the one cannot exist without the other. (20 Oct. 1821.)
For p. 1950, margin. This adaptability of the German language, this flexibility that is acknowledged to be harmful, only arises, in short, because the language is not sufficiently [1954] formed and regular. Freedom, the most beautiful and useful quality in a language, stems from imperfection in German, and proportionately again in English. In Italian, uniquely among the modern languages, it stems from or accompanies perfection—the only modern language that, because it is perfect and has a decided and complete character of its own, fully formed in every part, is entirely free. The freedom of the German language is harmful or else yields little fruit, like the kind of freedom enjoyed in a state of anarchy, or the kind that all peoples enjoy before society takes on a fully regular and stable form. The freedom of the Italian language is of the kind that wise, complete, and mature institutions enjoy and engender, which is far rarer and harder to find. It is settled in its character, and its character constitutes the language that is in turn contained by it. The freedom of German simply excludes a character of its own, or renders it uncertain and indeterminate. Meanwhile it subsists [1955] inasmuch as a perfectly formed, defined, and matured character does not subsist in it. Originality and freedom stand together in Italian, and would be incompatible in German. In Italian and in the wiser regimes, perfect legislation and freedom are not only compatible but are mutually enhancing. In German, freedom would be incompatible with the law, and it only subsists by virtue of the nonexistence or imperfection of the law.
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